The most controversial video game ever gets an upgrade.
Grand Theft Auto IV
Rockstar; PS3, Xbox 360
There are still cars to jack, pedestrians to run over and hookers to shoot, but the latest installment of the mighty
Grand Theft Auto series apparently does not contain another “Hot Coffee.” In case you’ve forgotten, Hot Coffee was the “hidden” minigame in
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that allowed your character to engage in steamy virtual sex. (It upset politicians and other prudish sorts and got the game yanked from some shelves in 2005.) But even without this hardcore component,
GTA IV is still likely to get Joe Lieberman’s knickers in a twist.
GTA IV stars Niko Bellic, a recent Eastern European immigrant to Liberty City (an impressively rendered stand-in for New York), who gets involved in the criminal underworld to save his shady cousin from the Mob. The game showcases grittier, more realistic graphics than its predecessors, but the basic structure is largely the same—it’s more evolutionary than revolutionary. One welcome change is the ability to zoom, aim and lock on to targets, which makes shootouts much less frustrating.
The best of the many side missions is going to make MADD even madder: It involves drunkenly driving a friend home from a bar (as the camera swings around wildly), making this perhaps the first DUI simulator in a mainstream video game. Inevitable controversy aside,
GTA remains the undisputed champion of open-ended gaming, providing us with all the cars, guns and ho’s we could want and a massive playground in which to indulge our darkest fantasies.